| 25 January 2010
Name of the Book: Curfewed night
Author: Basharat Peer
Publisher: Random House, India
Year of Publication: 2009; Price: Rs 395; Pages: 246
Reveiwed by: Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander
Kashmir is one of the ancient societies of the world and in the sub continent it boasts about the fact that it has continuous written 5000 years of history as its treasure. Kashmir has been suffering since more than four centuries, when the doom of slavery came in the year 1586 when Akbar conquered this valley and made it a part of Mughal India .
The partition of subcontinent too couldn’t end the days of doom for the valley inhabitants whose rulers changed hands from Dogra to Indian masters, and the ‘accession document’ was signed in those circumstances that still now the loyalty of Kashmiris is considered under suspicion by New Delhi. This suspicion has given rise to various tumults during the last sixty two years, and every new day brings more haunt than hope. The present book under review by a budding writer Basharat Peer is a welcome addition to the already existing vast literature on Kashmir Conflict, though not much has been written by the natives on the scholarly, political, ethnic, cultural or militant dimensions of Kashmiri conflict though this book too isn’t scholarly and doesn’t deal with history, sociology or politics of the Kashmir Tangle, but is only a lively experienced and witnessed account of a small phase of Kashmiri Struggle i.e The Armed Phase, its Initiation, Zenith, Suppression, Downfall and Effect on the common people of the valley.
Basharat is brutally honest while documenting the facts about the armed struggle, and is fearless to report the mounting atrocities committed by the so called protectors, enforcers of Law who under the pretexts of safeguarding the State machinery flexed the barrels of their guns on innocent people (victims of the conflict). Basharat in a factual manner records the rapes, killings, disappearances, arson, kidnappings, torture and maim of the Kashmiris at the hands of the armed forces of the state, who were then reinforced by the renegades whom Basharat interviewed as to what drove them from Patriotism to Fratricide?
Basharat also went to meet the emigrant Pandits who left the valley at the outbreak of the conflict, to know about their views and causes as to what forced them to exodus from their motherland in whose lap they were nursed, nurtured and notable for centuries, which only after certain initiation in insurgency became negligent and offered no refuge to their brutalized souls??
One fact that strikes the mind of the reader is the painstaking journey undertaken by the author to document the truth as uttered by the victims of the conflict. Some glaring examples of what I call ‘Living Martyrs’ too are witnessed in the stories of rape victims and scores others who survived these ordeals to testify the brutal wrath of State Agencies which they faced with smiling faces. To understand the cause of alienation and why Kashmiris still hate India, this book is a must read for those blind nationalist patriots as it opens their eyes through scores of examples as to what it means to be on the receiving end, and how this brutal repression turns into resistance against Indian Occupation.
This book is a glaring example of a Youngman who nurtured the desire to narrate the other side of the story, despite numerous hardships and obstacles emerged successful in narrating his and his people’s ordeal to the world. This book is also a living example of the failure of Kashmiri White Elephant Academia who since last 22 years of armed struggle have failed even to produce a single treatise on the conflict, and testify the fact that majority of the so called Kashmiri Intellectuals who lose no time to adorn the beautiful podiums and speak at seminars are all but State owned.
Even though the book maybe a narration of events, with no deep analysis or logical conclusion, still it offers many insights into the nature of conflict and maybe described as pioneer among the native discourse of Kashmiris to the world. Don’t read this book if you are happy, it will eventually make you sad, but do read it if you have the spine to understand what State’s Wrath is??